Princesses in Waiting and Puppies
by May Eve
Summary: …the narrator announced, “The End.” Cinderella had to always have hope. Cinderella had to forever be magic. And Cinderella was not abused.


Princesses-in-Waiting and Puppies

It caught me off guard.

It shouldn't have, really. I mean, I had seen the way she was treated in _public_, I didn't even want to think how it was when no one was around to see.

But I guess I hadn't thought that far before because it almost…frightened me. The look in her eyes as she watched me try to make conversation and then finally spoke, only to refuse a little warmth because she'd _taken enough charity_. And no matter how I argued with her, I could see she didn't believe me. Not fully; not without any doubt or hesitation.

People don't think of abuse that way. _I_ didn't even think of her situation as abuse. When abuse is thought about at all, bruises and broken bones and starvation are what come to mind. We don't think of it as abuse to be told you're worthless_ every day_ for as long as you can remember – that you'll never amount to anything, that you should be grateful for the pittance you're offered in exchange for a lifetime's service. We may not think of it that way, but in that moment, with that look, I realized that's what it was.

She was looking at me like I was her prince, her savior, her knight-in-shining-armor. And she still didn't trust me. She looked at me, spoke to me of _charity_ and being _undeserving_ as though it were gospel, proven fact which could never be altered or argued.

I stared at her in that second, shocked speechless, and all I could think of was the tiny puppy I'd seen in a rain-soaked cardboard box by a hotel stoop in New York. At the time, it had just been another passing melancholy in a city which was carved from the suffering of millions. Now, I realized what was off about that puppy. Puppies are supposed to wag their tails and beg for attention and smile with their tongues lolling out of their mouths. Just the same, pretty girls that dance like goddesses are supposed to smile and laugh and live wonderful, happily-ever-after lives. But the puppy—this girl—cringed from passersby, watched them dolefully with no movement, no wagging tail—she stared and did not speak and flinched rather than let me touch her.

Hers was a Cinderella story, there could be no doubt. But people don't like to think of Cinderella like that: as a victim of abuse. Because abuse wasn't magical, it could not be vanished and undone with the wave of a wand. Princesses-in-waiting were not abused or frightened or flinching. Fairytales were built on the premise of happily-ever-afters and kicked puppies were not happy in any sense of the word. They might grow to play happy and wag their tails and do all the things they were supposed to do…but in the end, whether it had been years or months or moments, they would always watch you with that same look of subservient, uncertain wariness. As though they were forever anticipating the other shoe dropping and their nice safe world collapsing with the impossibility of it all.

When I could finally speak I kept right on matching her look for look because I couldn't think of anything else to do. I said the first funny thought that came to mind and wished with all the magic of Prince Charming to see her smile, to see that awful resignation fall from her shoulders. And for a very brief time, I saw her—I saw my Princess with that light in her eyes and laugh on her lips and it was the most beautiful sight I had ever been blessed with.

Then the Wicked Stepmother's voice echoed onto our backyard veranda, our little slice of ever after, and the stars were eclipsed. Abruptly, the magic was gone, she was just a servant girl, I was a reigning prince and she went running into the ball without a word as she tossed the little warmth I had offered over her hunched shoulder.

Because fairytales are only tales and Prince Charmings don't marry the help and in that one look from a little kicked puppy of a Princess-in-waiting that never was…the narrator announced, "The End."

Cinderella had to always have hope. Cinderella had to forever be magic. And Cinderella was not abused.


End file.
